Facebook Home leak hints at a home screen replacement app

Facebook Home, according to this latest round of leaks and rumors, is looking like it will be an app and a launcher. That is not to say there will be nothing with an actual phone. There is still talk of the HTC Myst, however based on these recent details, it looks like the Facebook Home app/launcher will also be made available in the Google Play Store.

The key here, while the folks at Android Police have been playing around with the APK file, there is still plenty of mystery here. You see, the APK has a restriction in place that limits use to those with a Facebook employee account. According to the details provided thus far, the Facebook app that is set for release with the Myst is called com.facebook.wakizashi. For comparison, the regular Facebook app is called com.facebook.katana.

Anyway, it was said that the wakizashi version of the app has “all the permissions and intents needed to be your home screen app.” Some of the points here include the app being able to read the settings for your stock Android launcher as well as the HTC and the TouchWiz launchers. That last part there is why this is believed to be heading to the Google Play Store. Further digging into the app revealed icons to include a few for the app drawer along with one for compose, one for screen settings and even a Google logo.

There was also a ‘remove shortcut’ puff of cloud style icon as well as some mentions of developer related goodies. All that said, from what we are seeing it looks like Facebook is prepping a new app with a launcher. Something that sounds like you could somewhat easily turn your current phone into a Facebook phone. But the catch is, this is all rumor until we hear otherwise on April 4.